The power of suggestion on consumers´preferences for organic produce

摘要

Conventional production of fruits and vegetables entail the use of pesticides and otherpoisonous chemicals. Producers use these poisonous chemicals in order to make the crops moreprofitable by for example making them more resistant to insects, in order to acquire a fastergrowth rate or to obtain larger crops. This results in negative effects on the environment as wellas consumers health. The extent of these negative effects is beginning to receive more attentionfrom the public.Organic production is the opposite of conventional production, where the use of pesticides,genetically modified crops and other poisonous chemicals are banned. The negative effects onconsumers' health and the environment are in organic production greatly decreased, however, forthe farmer the cost of production and the risks are increased. Organic production therefore is lesspreferred by producers while becoming increasingly demanded by the educated public. The resultis an area of interest where consumer knowledge is often shallow and it is easy for producers tomake claims for which they may not have evidence to support. (Aertsens et al 2010)For these reasons, the importance of mindful consumer behavior when buying fruits andvegetables is becoming more important. Inspite of this, the increasing attention and thereby morestudies done on the subject, researchers' opinions of how to increase the consumption of organicproducts are still varied. One of many factors debated is how to educate the public and moreover,how much education is needed. (Laroche, Bergeron, & Barbaro-Forleo, 2001).The aim of this paper is therefore to examine if a small reminder/ educational quote issufficient to change consumer behavior in regards of preferring the more organic products. Theproduct chosen for the experiment is an apple due to the fact that fruits and vegetables accountfor 10 percent of Swedish consumers’ spending. The country of interest is Sweden due to the factthat the country is, relative to many other countries, well acquainted with organic produce, wherethe consumption of organics is increasing yearly by approximately 4%. (Fagerberg et al. 2014)The experiment was carried out through a survey, which was handed out at different locations inthe Vastra Gotaland region in Sweden. The respondents were chosen randomly at three differentlocations.The results of this experiment show that in similarity to past experiments, consumers arewilling to pay a little more for organic products. A deviation, which has not yet been examined, isthe object of this thesis, examining the power of suggestion on consumer behavior. The findingsof the experiment were that a small reminder of what organic production implies on average hasno significant effect on changing consumer behavior. However, in a few circumstances some significance was obtained.